[Anniversary] Eugene and Marjorie Stephens

Eugene and Marjorie Stephens, Kincaid, will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary at a reception from 3 to 5 p.m. Feb. 25 at the United Methodist Church in Kincaid.

Eugene Stephens and Marjorie Moore were married Feb. 25, 1062, at Kincaid’s United Methodist Church.

He is a self-employed farmer and rancher. She is a housewife and is employed by the Anderson County treasurer’s office. 

Hosts for the anniversary celebration will be the couple’s children, Shannon and Kenton Atkinson, Alan and Brenda Stephens, Jean and John Sluder and Sherri Stephens. The couple have nine grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

Friends and relatives are invited to attend. The couple requests no gifts.

 

Guns-first cabal wants guns on college campuses

The guns-everywhere cabal in the Kansas Legislature now has legislation before it which would legalize guns on the campuses of the state’s colleges and universities.

As is their custom, they have labeled the bill “The Family and Personal Protection Act,” rather than the more accurate “Qualify for More NRA Campaign Cash  — and to Heck with Student Safety Act.”

The legislation has been lambasted by the police chiefs of Kansas who rightly note that allowing guns on campus would lead to more tragedies and greatly complicate their law enforcement responsibilities and by college athletic departments who warn that joining the guns-first crowd would make it harder to recruit athletes.

It should also be firmly opposed by all thinking parents of college students and citizens of college towns — including Iola, dear reader.

Because every session of the Legislature is inflicted with bills aimed at doing the bidding of the NRA or some other lobby it would be useful if the lawmakers would discipline themselves by adopting a three-times-and-you’re-out rule that automatically assigned such repeat junk to the trash heap.

Voters should also be made aware of the fact that this annual paid-for legislation is introduced and then supported by the same small cadre of Billy the Kid wannabes and take action at the polls.

— Emerson Lynn, jr.


A historian looks at the anomolies in the GOP race

Timothy Egan, author of “The Worst Hard Times,” a modern classic on the Great Depression, is in love with facts and numbers. That passion prompted an analysis of the Republican presidential nomination process now under way. The conclusions he reaches are flat scary.

In summary, he concludes: “The small fraction of Americans who are trying to pick the Republican nominee are old, white, uniformly Christian and unrepresentative of the nation at large. . . .None of that is a surprise. But when you look at the numbers, it’s stunning how little this Republican primary electorate resembles the rest of the United States. They are much closer to the population of 1890 than of 2012.”

Here are a few of the numbers Egan collected:

— The nine states that have held caucuses or primaries to date are home to roughly 28 milion total registered voters, of all political persuasions. So far, 3 million voters have participated in the Republican races, less than the population of Connecticut. This means that 89 percent of all registered voters in these states have not participated in what is, from a horse-race perspective, a very tight contest.

— Less than 1 percent turned out in Maine. In Nevada, where Republican turnout was down 25 percent from 2008, only 3 percent of total registered voters participated. “This is not majority rule by any measure, it barely qualifies as participatory democracy,” Egan commented.

— In Florida, turnout was down 14 percent and 84 percent did not participate.

— South Carolina was an exception. Turnout there was up 35 percent from 2008. Of those who voted, 98 percent were white, 72 percent were 45 or older and nearly two-thirds were evangelical Christians according to exit polls. But the Census says the state is only 66 percent white, that the median age is 36 and exit polls from the 2008 general election put the percentage of evangelical Christians at 40 percent.

— Outside of Florida, this contest has been nearly an all-white affair. In Nevada, which is 26 percent Latino, only 5 percent ot the caucus voters were Latino. Caucus voters in Iowa were 99 percent white. But whites are 63.7 percent of the U.S. population.

THESE NUMBERS explain, Egan comments, why the candidates are taking fringe positions: they are talking to fringe audiences.

“ … A huge majority of Americans want to raise taxes on the rich, favor the withdrawal from Afghanistan and believe the earth is warming because of human action. Yet the Republican front runner of the moment, Rick Santorum, is with the minority on each of these issues, and Mitt Romney is a near match.

“The New York Times poll of this week found that all voters, by a 66 to 26 ratio, support the federal requirement that private health care plans cover the full cost of birth control for female patients. Among women, support is 72-20. And with Catholics, it’s 67-25. Yes, Catholics are slightly more liberal than the population at large.

“So, given how out of sync these two candidates are with the rest of the country, how could they be the front runners? It’s simple: look at who is voting, a nation unto itself.”


Vote!

Iolan Dillon Born gets registered to vote at the Allen County Courthouse Friday, the last day to register and be eligable for the Republican Caucus in Parsons. Potential voters must be registered 21 days prior to an election.


Father-son duo arrested

Joseph Black, 60, and his son, Daniel, 28, were arrested Thursday afternoon for allegedly stealing copper ground wires from Westar utility poles along Minnesota Road.

Undersheriff Bryan Murphy said a person called 911 to report the theft — he was driving nearby and saw wire being cut from a pole.

After notifying area scrap dealers, officers received a call from Ray’s Metal Depot, LaHarpe. The Blacks had taken 12 1/2 pounds of copper wire with other scrap metal to Ray’s.

During the Blacks’ arrests, Murphy said it was noted that the elder Black was wanted on a Linn County warrant, charging him with theft of metal from a railroad company. Local charges of theft have been requested against both Blacks, as well as obstruction against Daniel Black, who “wasn’t as cooperative as his dad,” said Murphy.


Pride group, Thrive team up in LaHarpe

LAHARPE — Thrive Allen County is setting its sights on ways to see LaHarpe improve.

Organizers from Thrive and the LaHarpe PRIDE Committee will meet at 7 p.m. Monday for a community conversation.

The focus of the conversation is to identify needs in the community, and then target the means to see those dreams become reality, Thrive Executive Director David Toland said.

“We really want to see a strong turnout,” Toland said.

In addition to the conversation, members of the Allen County Hospital Board of Trustees will be on hand to unveil drawings of the hospital at its planned site on North Kentucky Street. The drawings have been disclosed at trustees meetings but not for the public at large.

Monday’s meeting will be at LaHarpe City Hall.

Future community conversations are planned for April 16 in Mildred, June 18 in Petrolia, Aug. 20 in Iola and Oct. 15 in Gas.


Lent kicks off with church breakfast

Community Lenten breakfasts begin Wednesday at First Presbyterian Church, corner of Madison and Buckeye.

The breakfast begins at 6:30 a.m. with coffee and visiting. The meal is served at 7 a.m.

The program includes music, Scripture, a message, announcements and benediction, and typically ends about 7:30 a.m.

Members of each church provide the breakfast.

The Lenten breakfasts are a function of the Iola Area Ministeral Association.

The schedule for successive breakfasts is: Feb. 29 — Church of the Nazarene; March 7 — St. John’s Catholic Church; March 14 — AME Ward Chapel Covenant of Faith; March 21— First Baptist Church; March 28 — Calvary United Church, and April 4 — First Christian Church.

NBA’s Lin is another perseverance lesson

Right now, if you look that word up in a dictionary or “Google” it, you’d find a photo of Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks. Lin has stormed to the top of the sports world with his breakout performances as an NBA guard for the Knicks.

Lin is everywhere, even the regular news talks of his feats. The undrafted guard from Harvard, who rode the bench for several NBA teams, played in the minor league and then ended up on the bench of the Knicks this year. He came off the bench when the Knicks were in need of guard help.

Lin scored 136 points in his first five starts, most by an NBA player since the merger with the ABA in 1976-77. He is the first American-born NBA player of Chinese or Taiwanese descent.

Every sports columnist is writing about Lin, even in the Register. That’s big since I’m more of a high school and college basketball fan than an NBA fan, if I’m watching it at all.

Lin has been overlooked from the beginning. He said he couldn’t even get some D-III schools to look at him coming out of high school. 

One article caught my eye Thursday when Keith Smart, Sacramento Kings’ head coach, who was Lin’s first NBA coach with the Golden State Warriors, talked of Lin. Smart knows about coming from a small school to make it big.

Smart spent two years starring in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference at Garden City Community College, 1984-86. I came on the Jayhawk Conference scene about the same time when I became sports editor at the Register. Although Smart was in the Jayhawk West and Allen County is in the Jayhawk East, he was a standout player and a player of the year in the conference so we knew who he was in Kansas.

So my interest in the NCAA tournament championship game in 1987 was natural as Smart was playing for the Indiana Hoosiers under Hall of Fame coach Bob Knight. It was Smart’s shot from the corner that gave Indiana a 74-73 win over Syracuse for the national title.

Smart played in the professional ranks from 1988 to 1997, then moved into coaching.

Two stories about perseverance and where it can take a person. One closer to home is of former Marmaton Valley High’s Gavin Cole. Cole signed to play basketball at Allen County Community College knowing he was going to be a “role” player.

Cole was just that his freshman year at ACCC and that was fine. He kept working and it paid off the next season. Cole worked himself into more and more playing time. He started games for the Red Devils.

Then came Jan. 16, 2010. Cole was set up just inside the mid-court line as the Red Devils trailed by one point to visiting Highland Community College with 3.7 seconds left in regulation. ACCC teammate Andra Bailey rebounded a missed free throw, dribbled the ball a couple of times and made a perfect pass to Cole.

Cole squared up to the basket and put up a perfect arching jump shot. The ball was in the air when the buzzer sounded. All the crowd heard was the snap of the bottom of the net as the ball went cleanly through the hoop. Then a roar erupted in the Allen County gym.

Cole was buried under a dog pile by his ACCC teammates. Cole hit four threes on the night as he scored 13 points.

A few days later, Cole made several hustle plays to help the Red Devils win again at home. No, there was no championship for Cole and the Red Devils but Cole made his mark by working hard and staying with it on the basketball court.

Cole did play golf on ACCC’s Region VI, Division II championship teams.

To paraphrase an old saying about acting -— there are no small roles in sports, just small athletes.

Just last week, Chris Parker came off the ACCC men’s basketball bench late in a close game and sparked a rally.

The stories of Cole and Parker are not on the big stage of NBA proportion but very important to those here. What these four men have in common is their perseverance. They didn’t give up.

Good things come in small packages and not all professional athletes come from the “big name” schools in the world of athletics. Harvard is a big name university but not in athletic circles.

Never giving up and working hard pays off in athletics and life in general.


Annual DU Banquet/Auction

Ducks Unlimited celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. The annual Neosho Valley-Iola Chapter of Ducks Unlimited banquet and auction will feature many DU 75th anniversary items along with plenty of framed prints, decoys and other waterfowl and wildlife items. The event is Feb. 25 at the Iola American Legion building. Doors open a 5 p.m. with the dinner at 6:30 and the auction follows. Ticket prices at the door are $25 for Greenwings (youth), $35 for single adults and $50 for couples. Proceeds go to benefit waterfowl habitat.


Red Devils open baseball, softball seasons on the road this weekend

Allen County Community College’s softball and baseball teams open the 2012 season this weekend with games in Oklahoma. On Tuesday, the Register will have previews of the Red Devil squads along with results from the opening games.

The ACCC softball team will have a home doubleheader against the Ottawa University junior varsity on Tuesday. First pitch is at 2 p.m.

Allen County’s baseball team’s home opener is March 1 against Oklahoma Wesleyan University. The doubleheader begins at 3 p.m. at Red Devil Field.